Securing Our Rights: Speaker Biographies

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YASIR AFIFI: Yasir Afifi is a student attending Mission College in Davis, California. He was born and raised in California. His parents immigrated to the United States from Egypt. As the eldest of three brothers, Yasir had the responsibility of being a role model for his younger siblings, particularly when his father passed after suffering a heart attack when Yasir was 19. While working as a sales manager and studying business at Mission College; Yasir Afifi experienced a crude violation of his civil rights. He found an FBI tracking device under his vehicle and was being secretly tracked. The device was confirmed to be authentic when FBI contacted him about retrieving the device after Yasir was aware of its existence. Since the incident, Yasir feels social indifference to the violation of his rights, and feels that he has limited job opportunities due to this experience.  

FAHD AHMED: Fahd Ahmed is the Legal Policy Director at Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM). Currently, Ahmed leads DRUM's work on national security, racial profiling, and police accountability in the Racial and Immigrant Justice Program, and is also developing a community law practice focusing on the same issues. Immediately after 9/11, he led DRUM's work with Muslim, Arab, and South Asian immigrant detainees and their families. Ahmed has served as an Ella Baker intern at the Center for Constitutional Rights, as a legal consultant doing juvenile prison law work with Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana in New Orleans, and as a lecturer and researcher on Islamophobia, national security, and social movements at the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative at the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University. Ahmed has also been active in the Muslim community as an activist, and draws upon an understanding of Islamic theology that is committed to the ideals of social justice and to the spirit of liberation that lies at the center of Islam. Ahmed came to the United States from Pakistan in 1991 and went on to attend Vanderbilt University, and CUNY School of Law. He received a Haywood Burns Fellowship from the National Lawyers Guild.

SAHAR F. AZIZ:  Sahar F. Aziz is an associate professor of law at Texas Wesleyan School of Law where she teaches national security and civil rights law. Professor Aziz's scholarship focuses on the intersection of national security and civil rights law with a focus on the post-9/11 era. Professor Aziz incorporates critical race theory, feminist theory, and constitutional law into her examination of the disparate impact of post-9/11 laws and public policy on ethnic, racial, and religious minority groups in the United States. Professor Aziz's analyzes these issues in various contexts including immigration, counterterrorism, criminal justice, and civil rights litigation. Professor Aziz applies her scholarship in the American context towards her scholarship on rule of law and democracy promotion in post-revolution Egypt.

Professor Aziz served as a senior policy advisor for the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) where she worked on law and policy at the intersection of national security and civil rights. Prior to joining DHS, Professor Aziz was an associate at Cohen Milstein Sellers and Toll PLLP in Washington, D.C. where she litigated class action civil rights lawsuits alleging a nationwide pattern and practice of discrimination.

CYNTHIA BUIZA:  Cynthia Buiza worked on international refugee, migration and human rights issues for the past 18 years. Before working with the ACLU as Policy Director for its San Diego affiliate, she was Policy and Advocacy Director at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) in Los Angeles and she co-chaired the Legalization Committee of the Reform Immigration for America Campaign. She worked with various international organizations, including the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees-Regional Office in the Philippines, the Open Society Institute–Burma Education Project in Thailand, the Jesuit Refugee Service, Save the Children-UK and Save the Children-Sweden.

Cynthia has a Masters in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, a B.A. in Social Work from the Philippines, and a Certificate in Refugee Studies from Oxford University. In June 2003, she co-authored a book on armed conflict and internal displacement in the Indonesian Province of Aceh titled: "Anywhere But War." She is a member of the board of the Filipino Migrant Center of Southern California and is also a published author of poems and essays, the most recent of which is an anthology on expatriates and Filipino cuisine called "A Taste of Home."

SHAHID BUTTAR: Shahid Buttar leads the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC). Buttar's comments have been featured by news outlets including The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today, CNN, al-Jazeera, FOX News, Agence-France Presse, Huffington Post, Truthout, Democracy Now!, and many others, including dozens of radio stations around the country. Before joining BORDC Shahid was director of a national program to combat racial and religious profiling by federal authorities, an associate director of the American Constitution Society, and a litigator in private practice. He has performed around the world, co-founded several grassroots art and culture groups around the country, facilitated workshops for young people and emerging artists, and released his debut CD, Get Outta Your Chair, in 2008. Shahid’s music and articles, including his commentary for Huffington Post and Truthout, are available at his website.

CHRISTOPHER CALABRESE: Christopher Calabrese is the legislative counsel for privacy-related issues in the ACLU Washington Legislative Office (WLO). Prior to joining the WLO, Calabrese served as project counsel to the ACLU Technology & Liberty Project (TLP). As legislative counsel, Calabrese leads the office's advocacy efforts related to privacy and the responsible use of technology, developing proactive strategies on pending federal legislation and executive branch actions concerning data collection, surveillance, and identification systems.

Calabrese is currently working to battle data collection practices by the government and private sector that could lead to the creation of a surveillance society, fight invasive airline passenger screening practices, and protect workers against the damaging impact of a national electronic employment verification system. Key areas of concern range from the collection and storage of medical and financial information, Internet surfing habits, and travel patterns to government watch lists and state fusion centers.

In addition to his lobbying and communications outreach, Calabrese has helped lead several ACLU campaigns including opposing state implementation of the Real ID Act, urging state public utility commissions to investigate telecommunications companies' illegal cooperation with the National Security Agency, and ending law enforcement’s use of commercial databases and datamining as part of the Multi-State Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (MATRIX) program. Calabrese has also initiated Freedom of Information Act requests and provides legal guidance on the impact of new technologies on civil liberties.

Before joining the ACLU in 2004, Calabrese served as the Legal Counsel to the Massachusetts Senate Majority Leader, Linda J. Melconian. In that capacity, he helped draft the Massachusetts Genetic Anti-Discrimination and Privacy Law and a number of other measures aimed at preserving individual rights.

Calabrese is a graduate of Harvard University and holds a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.

ANGELA F. CHAN: Angela F. Chan is a staff attorney managing the Criminal Justice Reform Program at the Asian Law Caucus (ALC). She represents immigrant families who have youth caught in the juvenile justice system and youth who are harassed or discriminated in the K-12 public education system based on race, ethnicity and other protected categories. Angela also provides know your rights education on youth rights with the police, the juvenile justice system, and bullying and harassment. Her work at ALC began in 2006 with a Soros Justice Fellowship from the Open Society Institute and an Irving Kaufman Fellowship from Harvard Law School. She was awarded a Monarch Award by the Pacific Asian American Women Bay Area Coalition in 2008 for her work assisting immigrant families in the juvenile system. She also was named a Local Hero by the San Francisco Bay Guardian for her advocacy on behalf of immigrant youth. Angela has served as an instructor in the Raza Department at San Francisco State University, teaching the course Race, Crime and Justice, and Issues in the Criminalization of Latino Youth. She also is currently on the San Francisco Police Commission, which is a civilian oversight body that sets policy for the department and makes decisions on police disciplinary cases.

NUSRAT J. CHOUDHURY: Nusrat Choudhury is a Staff Attorney in the ACLU's National Security Project (NSP). She litigates cases concerning post-9/11 civil rights and civil liberties violations, including a challenge to the federal government's administration of the No-Fly List and a challenge to the role of U.S. government officials in the illegal detention, rendition, and coercive interrogation of a U.S. citizen in East Africa. Ms. Choudhury also litigates cases concerning FBI abusive surveillance and racial and religious profiling of communities for investigation, and pursues strategies to combat rights infringements impacting racial, ethnic, and religious minorities post-9/11. She received her B.A. from Columbia University, her M.P.A. from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and her J.D. from Yale Law School. Ms. Choudhury is a recipient of the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans.
 
Prior to joining NSP, Ms. Choudhury worked as a Marvin A. Karpatkin Fellow in the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program, and served as a clerk for Judge Barrington D. Parker in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and for Judge Denise Cote in the Southern District of New York. She also worked for the Women's Prison Association & Home, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and the Senior Deputy High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina. Ms. Choudhury has published in the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism and the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law and serves as co-director of Young Professionals for CARE.

THOMAS CINCOTTA: Thomas Cincotta is an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild and member of the Massachusetts NLG Board. From 2009 to Sept. 2011, Thom was the Civil Liberties Project Director for Political Research Associates, where he authored two helpful reports on how domestic intelligence practices target people of color, dissidents, and Muslim and Arab-American, Middle Eastern, and South Asian individuals. These reports are available at www.publiceye.org. Thom has represented migrant farm workers, protesters, bus drivers and their families, and served on the board of El Centro Humanitario, Denver’s first day laborer center.

WILL COLEY: Will Coley is latte-drinking, bike-riding, taco-loving, media-making social justice do-gooder originally from North Carolina now living in Los Angeles. He has been an advocate and organizer with immigrants and refugees in Charlotte, New York/Newark, and Los Angeles, as well as in Zimbabwe and Great Britain, for organizations including Catholic Charities, American Friends Service Committee, Jesuit Refugee Service and Homies Unidos. Through Aquifer Media, Will designs social campaigns and digital storytelling for groups such as Detention Watch Network, Rights Working Group, Public Interest Projects and the Freedom from Fear Awards.

LILLIE CONEY: Lillie Coney is Associate Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington, D.C. She has testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Privacy and Cybercrime Enforcement and the House Committee on Homeland Security on the topic of watch lists. She has also testified before the House Committee on Science regarding Smart Grid and privacy. She also testified several times before the Department of Homeland Security's Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee on domestic surveillance, CCTV Surveillance, and "Fusion Centers". Ms. Coney has testified before the Election Assistance Commission on the subject of voter privacy related to voter registration databases, electronic voting system standards development, and developing reliable measures for voting administration and equipment management. She co-chaired the "2011 Computers Freedom and Privacy Conference the Future is Now" held at the Georgetown Law Center in Washington, D.C. She chaired the Mexico City meeting in 2011.

JOHN CREW: John Crew has served the ACLU in a variety of capacities for more than three decades. Beginning in 1985, he spent 15 years as the Police Practices Project Director and staff attorney for the ACLU of Northern California. In that capacity, he led an effort that resulted in a comprehensive overhaul of San Francisco police intelligence policies. Crew left the affiliate to accept a one-year assignment as the founding Coordinator for National ACLU's Campaign Against Racial Profiling. Since then, he has been a consultant for ACLU-NC on a variety of projects and served as the affiliate’s Interim Executive Director. He is currently leading ACLU-NC's advocacy aimed in ensuring local police assigned to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force comply with strong state and local civil rights protections rather than weak federal guidelines. Crew earned his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and his law degree from U.C. Hastings College of the Law.

JAMIL DAKWAR: Jamil Dakwar is Director of the ACLU's Human Rights Program (HRP). He leads a team of lawyers and advocates who use a human rights framework to complement existing ACLU legal and legislative advocacy, and who advance social justice primarily in the areas of national security, immigrants' rights, women’s rights, racial justice, capital punishment, and children's rights. HRP conducts human rights public education and engages in litigation and advocacy before U.S. courts and international human rights bodies. Prior to joining the ACLU in 2004, Dakwar worked at Human Rights Watch, where he conducted research and published reports on issues of torture and detention in Egypt, Morocco, Israel, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Before coming to the United States, Dakwar was a senior attorney with Adalah, a leading human rights group in Israel, where he filed and argued human rights cases before Israeli courts and advocated before international forums. Dakwar received his law degree from Tel-Aviv University and LL.M. from New York University.

JIM DEMPSEY: Jim Dempsey, Vice President for Public Policy, has been with Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) since 1997. From 2003 to 2005, he served as Executive Director; he currently heads CDT West, in San Francisco. At CDT, Mr. Dempsey concentrates on Internet privacy, government surveillance, and national security issues. He coordinates the Digital Due Process coalition, www.digitaldueprocess.org, a diverse group of companies, advocacy groups and think tanks working to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. Dempsey is widely quoted in the media and has testified numerous times before Congressional committees. Ars Technica and Tech Policy Central identified Dempsey as one of the top names in tech policy for 2009.

VEENA DUBAL: Veena Dubal is a Staff Attorney at the Asian Law Caucus and a PhD student in Jurisprudence and Social Policy at UC Berkeley. Veena joined the Caucus as a Berkeley Law Foundation Fellow in 2008 when she began a taxi project that helped to address and remediate the labor conditions in San Francisco's largely immigrant taxi driver community. Currently, she focuses on issues of civil rights in the context of national security, including racial profiling at the border, local law enforcement profiling, and FBI surveillance. Veena serves as the Co-Chair of Civil Rights for the South Asian Bar Association of North America and the Secretary of the Board of the DataCenter, and she sits on the Steering Committee for the Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education. Veena received her law degree from UC Berkeley, and her undergraduate degree from Stanford University.

MICHELLE FEI: Michelle Fei serves as Co-Director of the Immigrant Defense Project. She focuses her substantive work on IDP’s community education and policy initiatives, including by designing and conducting educational programs about criminal-immigration issues, providing accessible analyses of legislative proposals, and challenging overly aggressive detention and deportation programs. She, along with Mizue Aizeki, formerly of the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights, successfully led the campaign to end "Secure Communities" in New York. Michelle graduated from NYU Law School in May 2003. She helped launch the Center for Community Problem Solving, where, with the support of an Equal Justice Works Fellowship, she spearheaded a jail and prison reentry project and an immigrant workers' rights project. Michelle co-authored "Learning How Regularly to Meet the Challenges of Asian and Pacific Islander Reentry," published in Amerasia Journal. After five years at The Center, Michelle joined a community-based law firm. There, she represented Spanish-speaking, low-wage Central American clients to help them gain and maintain legal status through applications in immigration court and before the Department of Homeland Security.

GEORGE FRIDAY: George Friday holds degrees in political science, economics, and African American studies from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where she graduated in 1982. Her work particularly focuses on communication, oppression, change, and the role of privilege in transforming power dynamics, fostering broad, deep economic and social justice change. She brings more than three decades of experience to her position as national field organizer for the Bill of Rights Defense Committee.

MIKE GERMAN: Mike German is a senior policy counsel for national security and privacy for the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. In this capacity German develops policy positions and proactive strategies on pending legislation and executive branch actions concerning domestic surveillance, data mining, freedom to travel, medical and financial privacy, whistleblower protection, open government and intelligence and law enforcement oversight. A sixteen-year veteran of federal law enforcement, German served as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he specialized in domestic terrorism and covert operations. German served as an adjunct professor for Law Enforcement and Terrorism at the National Defense University and is a Senior Fellow with GlobalSecurity.org.

LISA GRAVES: Lisa Graves is the Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy, the publisher of PR Watch, SourceWatch, BanksterUSA, and ALECexposed.org. She previously served as a senior advisor in all three branches of the federal government, as a leading strategist on civil liberties advocacy, and as an adjunct law professor. She previously served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy/Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Justice, Chief Counsel for Nominations for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Senior Legislative Strategist for the American Civil Liberties Union, Deputy Director of the Center for National Security Studies, and Deputy Chief of the Article III Judges Division of the U.S. Courts. Graves has testified as an expert witness before both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. She has also appeared as an expert on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNBC, BBC, C-SPAN, and other news programs and on numerous radio shows, including National Public Radio, Democracy Now!, Air America, and Pacifica Radio. Her analysis has been quoted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Associated Press, Reuters, USA Today, The Nation, Vanity Fair, Congressional Quarterly, Roll Call, National Journal, Legal Times, Newsday, Wired, and Mother Jones, among others, as well as online in The Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo, and other blogs.

ANDREA GUERRERO: Andrea Guerrero is the Executive Director of the Equality Alliance of San Diego County, a non-profit organization whose mission is to share knowledge, build power, and mobilize for change. Through issue-specific coalitions and peer-to-peer civic engagement programs, the Alliance is bringing together diverse organizations and individuals to pursue strategic policy reforms that improve the condition of disenfranchised and disadvantaged communities.

Before joining the Equality Alliance, Ms. Guerrero was the Field & Policy Director at the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties. Prior to the ACLU, she practiced immigration law before administrative and federal district and appellate courts. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley Law School (J.D.), University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs (M.A.), and Stanford University (B.A.). Originally from Mexico City, Ms. Guerrero views the world from a bi-national, bicultural, and bilingual lens. She also co-chairs the Southern Border Communities Coalition. You can learn more about the Equality Alliance at www.equalitysandiego.org.

SAMEERA HAFIZ: Sameera Hafiz, the Policy Director at the Rights Working Group (RWG), leads and coordinates coalition advocacy efforts and develops strategies to advance RWG's policy agenda. Prior to joining RWG, Sameera was a Senior Staff Attorney with Legal Momentum's Immigrant Women Program where she engaged in national policy advocacy to promote reforms benefitting immigrant women. Sameera previously was a Staff Attorney at the Immigration Law Unit of The Legal Aid Society of New York and at the Safe Horizon Anti-Trafficking Program and Domestic Violence Law Project. Sameera began her legal career at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. Sameera is a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center. During law school, she participated in the International Women's Human Rights Clinic and was an active volunteer of the Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center. Sameera was also an AmeriCorps volunteer. Sameera has previously served on the Board of Directors of Sakhi for South Asian Women, an anti-domestic violence organization. Sameera is fluent in Bangla.

SUMMER HARARAH: Summer Hararah is the coordinator for the National Security and Civil Rights Program at the Asian Law Caucus. She works to help combat profiling and discrimination against Arab, Middle Eastern, South Asian and Muslim communities in the United States. Summer works to identify broad patterns of abuse and systemic civil rights violations and aims to educate and engage impacted communities in defending their rights. Prior to joining ALC, Summer worked with the Arab Resource and Organizing Center as the legal and outreach director for their Arab American Legal Services. Summer graduated from the University of California, Davis in 2008 with a B.A. in Political Science and a minor in Middle East South Asian Studies.

JIM HARPER: As director of information policy studies, Jim Harper works to adapt law and policy to the unique problems of the information age, in areas such as privacy, telecommunications, intellectual property, and security. Harper was a founding member of the Department of Homeland Security's Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee and he recently co-edited the book Terrorizing Ourselves: How U.S. Counterterrorism Policy Is Failing and How to Fix It. He has been cited and quoted by numerous print, Internet, and television media outlets, and his scholarly articles have appeared in the Administrative Law Review, the Minnesota Law Review, and the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly. Harper wrote the book Identity Crisis: How Identification Is Overused and Misunderstood. Harper is the editor of Privacilla.org, a Web-based think tank devoted exclusively to privacy, and he maintains online federal spending resource WashingtonWatch.com. He holds a J.D. from UC Hastings College of Law.

LARESSE HARVEY: LaResse Harvey is the African American Policy Director for A Better Way Foundation, a Connecticut-based community organization dedicated to a sensible shift in drug policy. She is a formerly incarcerated single mother with over 10 years experience in community activism on issues of a women's right to choose, housing, reentry, drug treatment, and custodial parental rights. Ms. Harvey holds several Associate Degrees and a Bachelors in Social Work from St. Joseph's College. She works currently organizing residents, business owners, advocates, and social agency staff to address issues of reintegration, housing, homelessness, hunger, and child support. She also works with young women ages 10-14 years old on racial justice, advocacy, life skills, and public speaking. For the past year, she has been working closely with a coalition in Hartford dedicated to passing local legislation, modeled after the Bill of Rights Defense Committee's Local Civil Rights Restoration Act that would address racial profiling, unfair targeting of immigrants, and unwarranted domestic surveillance by the Hartford Police Department.

MARGARET HUANG: Margaret Huang, an experienced advocate for racial justice and human rights in the United States, is the Executive Director of the Rights Working Group (RWG). The RWG coalition was formed in the aftermath of 9/11 to restore civil liberties and human rights protections that have been eroded by national security policies. As a national coalition of more than 320 civil liberties, immigrant rights and human rights organizations, RWG seeks to ensure that the rights of everyone in the United States are respected regardless of citizenship or immigration status, race, national origin, religion or ethnicity. In 2009, RWG launched a campaign, Racial Profiling: Face the Truth, working with member organizations and allies around the country to enact legislation and win policy reforms that would ban racial and religious profiling by law enforcement agencies.

Ms. Huang has spoken at a number of national conferences, and she has given testimony before the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. She has published articles and op-eds on human rights and RWG advocacy campaigns, and she authored a chapter, "Going global – Appeals to International and Regional Human Rights Bodies," in Human Rights At Home, published by Praeger Publishers in December 2007.

Ms. Huang sits on the Steering Committee of the Human Rights at Home Campaign, which seeks to promote a domestic human rights agenda in the United States. She serves on the Board of Directors for the U.S. Human Rights Network, a coalition of more than two hundred and fifty organizational members dedicated to promoting U.S. government accountability to human rights standards.

Ms. Huang's previous work experience includes serving as Director of the U.S. Program at Global Rights, as Program Director of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights, as Program Manager at The Asia Foundation, and as Committee Staff for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Ms. Huang received a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University, and a B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University.

PRAMILA JAYAPAL: Pramila Jayapal is the founder and Executive Director of OneAmerica. Started in the wake of 9-11, OneAmerica has grown to become the largest immigrant advocacy organization in Washington state and a leading force for immigrant rights nationally. Under Ms. Jayapal's leadership, OneAmerica has organized tens of thousands of diverse immigrants around immigration reform, immigrant integration and racial profiling; registered and mobilized over 25,000 New American voters; built unusual alliances; and achieved significant policy change. Ms. Jayapal is an immigrant from India and has spent over twenty years working for social justice in the United States and internationally. She is also a published writer of essays and a book, and the proud mother of a 14-year old son. She has received numerous awards and recognitions for her work, including being named by the Puget Sound Business Journal as one of 20 Women of Influence, whose work "moves the needle on critical issues."

SUJATHA JESUDASON: As founder and Executive Director, Sujatha brings her expertise in social justice, community organizing and historically marginalized groups to all of Generations Ahead’s efforts. From examining the fault lines in efforts to curtail sex selection to exposing attempts to pit reproductive rights against disability rights, Sujatha works to forge unlikely collaborations and look past forced simplifications. With over 20 years as an advocate for women's rights, Sujatha has worked at Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, 9to5 National Association of Working Women and the Center for Genetics and Society. As Board Chair of National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum and having served on the Management Circle of SisterSong, Sujatha is a key leader in the field of reproductive justice. She works at the intersection of issues too often considered separately: economic inequality, domestic violence, cultural norms, discrimination, and gender roles. In this, Sujatha merges not only topics but methods, from rigorous academic research to on the ground movement building, and from legislative education to media advocacy. A leading voice on the ethics of genetic innovations, women's rights and racial justice, Sujatha holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.

JEFF JONAS: Jeff Jonas is Chief Scientist, IBM Entity Analytics Group and an IBM Distinguished Engineer. The IBM Entity Analytics Group was formed based on technologies developed by Systems Research & Development (SRD), founded by Jonas in 1984, and acquired by IBM in January, 2005.

Prior to the acquisition Jonas lead SRD through the design and development of a number of unique systems including technology used by the Las Vegas gaming industry. One such innovation played a pivotal role in protecting the gaming industry from aggressive card count teams. The most notable known as the MIT team featured in the book "Bringing Down the House", and recent movie "21." This work is frequently featured in documentaries appearing on, the Discovery Channel, Learning Channel and the Travel Channel.

Following an investment in 2001 by In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA; SRD began playing a role in America's national security and counterterrorism mission. One such contribution includes an analysis of the connections between the individual 9/11 terrorists. This link analysis is now taught in universities and has been widely cited by think tanks and the media, for example, an extensive one-on-one interview with Peter Jennings that aired on ABC PrimeTime.

Jonas designs next generation technology that helps organizations better leverage their enterprise-wide information assets. With particular interest in real-time "sensemaking" these innovative systems fundamentally improve enterprise intelligence which makes organizations smarter, more efficient and highly competitive.

Jonas' work has received wide media attention from the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, to Fortune Magazine, MSNBC and National Public Radio. A highly sought after speaker, Jonas travels the globe discussing innovation, national security, and privacy with government leaders, industry executives, leading global think tanks, privacy advocacy groups, and policy research organizations. He is a Member of the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age, a Board Member of the US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), on the EPIC Advisory Board, on the Privacy International Advisory Board, a Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and a Distinguished Engineer of Information Systems (adjunct) at Singapore Management University.

Jonas periodically testifies on privacy and counterterrorism in such venues as the Department of Homeland Security's Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee, and other federally convened commissions.

Jonas was briefly a quadriplegic in 1988 following a car accident. Today, he competes in Ironman triathlons around the world. He has three wonderful children he raised as a single father.

JESSICA KARP: Jessica Karp is a Staff Attorney at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. She focuses on litigation and advocacy to combat the rapid spread of state and local immigration enforcement programs. Jessica received her J.D. from Columbia Law School, where she was the recipient of a Dean's Public Interest Fellowship. Before joining NDLON, Jessica clerked for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Prior to law school, she was the Public Education Coordinator at MADRE, an international women’s human rights organization based in New York City.

NADIA KAYYALI: Nadia Kayyali is a 3L at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. She is the Student National Vice President for the National Lawyers Guild and previously served as the Co-Law School Vice President for the Bay Area. She is the Community Outreach Editor for the Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal and does work on campus addressing structural inequality and administrative transparency. Nadia is active in a number of campaigns. She represents the National Lawyers Guild, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter on the Coalition for Safe San Francisco, a coalition dedicated to addressing racial and religious profiling of the Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian Community. She also worked with CSSF as a summer clerk at ACLU of Northern California in the summer of 201. With other NLG members, she currently spends much of her time doing legal support for the Occupy movement. She is also a judicial extern for the Honorable Edward Chen at the Northern District of California. In the summer of 2010, she was the Matthew Tobriner Summer Social Justice Fellow at Bay Area Legal Aid. Before law school, she attended UC Berkeley, where she received a BA in Cultural Anthropology and a minor in Public Policy.

KEVIN KEENAN: Kevin Keenan has been executive director of the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties since 2005. He previously served as interim director of the ACLU affiliates in Nevada and New Jersey. He helped human rights reform efforts in Belfast, Northern Ireland following the Good Friday Peace Agreement and monitored elections in the former Yugoslavia. He served as an attorney for children in Virginia's juvenile prisons and succeeded in pressing new laws to improve reentry services for children with mental health and educational difficulties. He is author of Invasion of Privacy: A Reference Handbook (ABC-CLIO 2005) and, with Samuel Walker, An Impediment to Accountability? An Analysis of Law Enforcement Officers' Bills of Rights (Boston University Journal of Public Interest Law 2005). In 2010, Keenan was admitted as a five-year term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Keenan graduated from Yale Law School and Swarthmore.

BRIDGET KESSLER: Bridget Kessler is an Associate in the Litigation practice group in the New York office of Mayer Brown LLP. Before joining Mayer Brown, she spent two years as a Clinical Teaching Fellow at the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. At the Clinic, she supervised second and third-year law students in their casework representing immigrants in removal proceedings and community-based organizations in policy advocacy and impact-litigation projects. In that capacity, she represented the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), as co-counsel with Mayer Brown and the Center for Constitutional Rights, in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in federal court. Documents obtained through the litigation have exposed critical information about the controversial federal immigration enforcement program Secure Communities and its connection to the FBI's Next Generation Identification program. Ms. Kessler continues to represent NDLON as part of a pro bono team at Mayer Brown. In the past, Ms. Kessler has interned with the Holland and Knight LLP Community Services Team, the ACLU National Prison Project, the American University International Human Rights Law Clinic, and the National Security Archive, and others. She earned a J.D. from the Washington College of Law at American University and a B.A. in History from Vassar College.

HAMID KHAN: Hamid Khan is a first generation immigrant from Pakistan, and founder/Executive Director of South Asian Network (1990 - 2010). Hamid helped create the first grassroots community-based organization in Los Angeles committed to informing and empowering thousands of South Asians in Southern California to act as agents of change in eliminating biases, discrimination and injustices. Hamid is a founding member of the Los Angeles Taxi Workers Alliance and serves on the board of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, a national forum that works to promote a just immigration and refugee policy in the United States and to defend and expand the rights of all immigrants and refugees, regardless of immigration status. Hamid was recently awarded the 2011 Soros Justice fellowship to build an intersectional campaign against Los Angeles Police Department's surveillance and profiling pursuant to Special Order 11.

KUNG LI: Kung Li is a human rights attorney. As a 2010-2011 Open Society Fellowship recipient, Kung Li traveled across the American South to record stories of resilience in communities of color that have persevered in the face of racism, anti-immigrant hysteria, police harassment, and government indifference. In her travels from Cambridge, Maryland, and Cherokee, North Carolina, to Africatown, Alabama, and Newtown, Georgia, and beyond, Kung Li has been able to identify a set of common traits that distinguish resilient communities from those that have succumbed to hostile pressure. Among those traits are a strong sense of identity that shades into exceptionalism, economic practices that have turned deprivation into interdependence, a person (or persons) who exemplifies the community's idea of courageous action, and a sharp sense of the enemy in their struggles for freedom and social justice. Kung Li is the former executive director of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta and was named by American Lawyer as one of the nation’s Top 50 Litigators under 40 in 2007. Previously, she served as a staff attorney at the Law Center for the Homeless in Atlanta.

JENNIFER LYNCH: Jennifer Lynch is a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and works on open government, transparency and privacy issues as part of EFF's FOIA Litigation for Accountable Government (FLAG) Project. She has written frequently on FBI surveillance programs and intelligence community misconduct. Prior to joining EFF, Jennifer was the Clinical Teaching Fellow with the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law. At the Samuelson Clinic, Jennifer specialized in privacy and intellectual property issues, including investigations on social media, privacy and the smart electrical grid, digital books, and open source regimes for biotech. Before the Clinic, Jennifer practiced with Bingham McCutchen in San Francisco and clerked for Judge A. Howard Matz in the Central District of California. She earned both her undergraduate and law degrees from UC Berkeley. She has published academically on identity theft and phishing attacks (20 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 259) and sovereign immunity in civil rights cases (62 Fla. L. Rev. 203).

JULIA H. MASS: Julia Harumi Mass is a Staff Attorney with the ACLU of Northern California, focusing primarily on immigrants' rights and national security. Julia has 14 years of experience as a litigator and has spoken extensively on issues related to immigration and national security. Her current work focuses on civil liberties and public safety concerns arising from immigration-based policing by local agencies as well as FBI surveillance of Muslim communities in the name of national security. Recent cases include a class action challenge to shackling of immigration detainees in immigration court, an action against Immigration and Custom Enforcement and a local county sheriff for racial profiling and unlawful searches and arrests in the course of civil immigration enforcement, a case on behalf of a U.S. citizen child who was detained during an immigration raid, and cases under the Freedom of Information Act against ICE and the FBI. In 2005, Julia worked to secure the return of two U.S. citizens in Pakistan whom the U.S. government refused to allow to return home without submitting to interrogation and a lie detector test, and she participates in the ACLU's current court challenge to the U.S. government's "No Fly List." Prior to her work at the ACLU, she represented public and private sector labor unions and employees as an associate with Rothner, Segall and Greenstone in Pasadena, California. In 1996-97, Julia clerked for the Honorable Warren J. Ferguson of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She has a B.A. in Philosophy from Reed College and received her law degree from the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law.

NURA MAZNAVI: Nura Maznavi is an attorney at Muslim Advocates, leading its Program to End Racial and Religious Profiling. Nura focuses on federal policies that target the American Muslim community, including FBI surveillance and border profiling. Prior to joining Muslim Advocates, Nura was an associate with the law firm Rosen, Bien & Galvan in San Francisco, litigating prisoner rights class actions on behalf of California state prisoners. Nura was also a staff attorney for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and a Fulbright Scholar in Sri Lanka, where she worked with local and international non-governmental organizations on issues effecting Sri Lankan migrant workers.

BRYAN NUNEZ: Bryan Nunez is Technology Manager at WITNESS (www.witness.org). He oversees technology for the organization as well as the development of projects like the Hub, a site for citizen human rights media, and the Secure Smart Cam, a camera-phone app for human rights activists. Prior to WITNESS, he was a technology strategist and consultant on a variety of projects ranging from online banking to interactive television. He is an alumnus of the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU and has a BA in anthropology from UC Berkeley. Follow him on Twitter @tech_wit.

JENNIE PASQUARELLA: Jennie Pasquarella is a staff attorney focused on immigrants' rights and national security litigation and advocacy. Ms. Pasquarella works on issues ranging from the rights of immigrant workers to the rights of Muslim communities to be free from discrimination.

Prior to joining the ACLU/SC office in 2008, Ms. Pasquarella was a legal fellow in the International Legal Program of the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York, where she sought to ensure the rights of refugees and migrants, adolescents, and people affected by HIV/AIDS to basic reproductive health care through international litigation and advocacy. Previously, Ms. Pasquarella was a Kroll Fellow and staff attorney with the ACLU Women's Rights Project, where she focused on the rights of immigrant women workers to be free from modern forms of slavery and sexual harassment and abuse.

Previously, Ms. Pasquarella worked for a range of human rights organizations in Latin America and the United States, and clerked for an appeals chamber judge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. She earned her J.D. with a Certificate in Refugee and Humanitarian Emergencies from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was also a Public Interest Law Scholar.

RAINEY REITMAN: Rainey Reitman is the Activism Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit civil liberties law firm and advocacy organization that champions the public interest in critical battles affecting digital rights. Reitman and EFF educate and empower consumers about issues that affect their online rights and mobilize concerned citizens to beat bad legislation. Prior to joining EFF, she served as Director of Communications for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit advocacy and education organization promoting consumer privacy. Reitman serves as a steering committee member for the Bradley Manning Support Network, a network of individuals and organizations advocating for the release of accused WikiLeaks whistleblower Pfc. Bradley Manning. Reitman earned her BA from Bard College in Multidisciplinary Studies: Creative Writing, Russian & Gender Studies.

WALTER RILEY: Walter Riley is a renowned civil rights attorney and activist in Oakland specializing in police misconduct and anti-discrimination law. He also represents the Oakland Post, and serves on the Boards of Directors of Black Alliance for Just Immigration and the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute.  

LAURA RIVAS: Laura Rivas heads up National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR's) HURRICANE initiative and the "100 Stories" Project, training and working with communities documenting human rights abuses of immigrants. Raised in Lynwood, Calif., Laura attended Loyola Marymount University where she participated as a student leader linking academic work with community organizing and activism advocating for youth and families in the educational and criminal justice systems. Laura completed a Master of Arts in Cultural Anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco, and is now a proud parent of the youngest member of the NNIRR family, Nayeli Maxhetsi.

MARK RUMOLD: Mark is the Open Government Legal Fellow at Electronic Frontier Foundation, where he works primarily on the FOIA Litigation for Accountable Government (FLAG) Project. His legal interests include the First Amendment, information privacy, and the ways technology can improve how we structure government. He received his law degree from Boalt Hall and his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University. In his spare time, Mark likes doing the New York Times crossword puzzle, cheering for disappointing sports teams, and traveling.

KEITH RUSHING: Keith Rushing, communications manager at the Rights Working Group, coordinates the organization's media outreach, social media and communications strategies to advance RWG's policy goals. Prior to joining RWG, Rushing worked as the communications manager at Appleseed, a national organization that works to remove structural barriers to opportunity and equality. He previously worked as the writer-editor at Advancement Project, a national civil rights organization, where he wrote and edited a variety of publications. Rushing is a graduate of Carleton College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He worked as a reporter at daily newspapers in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Virginia and California. At daily newspapers, Rushing covered crime, education, local government and has written in-depth stories about a wide variety of topics including police brutality, racial discrimination and working conditions in meatpacking plants.

LINDA SARSOUR: Linda Sarsour is currently the Advocacy and Civic Engagement Coordinator for the National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC) and Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) and locally serving as the Director of the Arab American Association of New York, a social service agency serving the Arab community in NYC. Linda is a working woman, community activist, and mother of three. Ambitious, outspoken and independent, Linda shatters stereotypes of Muslim women while also treasuring her religious and ethnic heritage. She is a Palestinian Muslim American and a self-proclaimed "pure New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn!" Linda was a 2005 COROS New American Leaders Fellow, named Extraordinary Woman by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes and received the 2010 Brooklyn Do-Gooder Award from the Brooklyn Community Foundation. Linda is also a board member of the New York Immigration Coalition. In the 2008 elections, Linda coordinated the largest and most successful get out the vote effort in the Arab American community in Brooklyn. She has been featured in local, national, and international media speaking on topics ranging from women’s issues, Islam, domestic policy and political discussions on the Middle East conflict.

JAZMIN SEGURA: Jazmin Segura is SIREN's federal policy advocate. She is responsible for advocating policies that protect immigrant rights and works with Santa Clara County's immigrant communities to engage them in the political decision process. Jazmin was born in Mexico City and immigrated to the United States in 1994. Coming from a low-income immigrant family, Jazmin knows firsthand the struggles that challenge our communities. She first got involved in the immigrant rights and social justice movement in February 2006, when she participated in a student forum for AB 540 students. Soon after, Jazmin became involve with the planning of the May 1st marches in Berkeley as well as with Centro Legal de La Raza where she assisted low income immigrant workers in need of affordable legal services. In the summer of 2007 Jazmin interned at the ACLU Immigrant Rights Project and conducted research on local anti-immigrant ordinances and 287(g) agreements between law enforcement agencies and Immigration Customs Enforcement. Jazmin graduated from the University of California, Berkeley where she received a B.S. in Political Economy.

PAROMITA SHAH: Paromita Shah has served as Associate Director of the National Immigration Project since 2005, specializing in immigration detention and enforcement. She is a contributing author and co-presenter of the "Deportation 101" curriculum, participates in regular advocacy efforts with ICE officials, and has created an abundance of resources for communities affected by heightened immigration enforcement efforts. Previously, Paromita served as director of Capital Area Immigrants' Rights (CAIR) Coalition in Washington, DC, where she conducted presentations in regional county jails, trained attorneys, assessed detainee claims for relief, and conducted liaison meetings with DHS and DOJ. She also worked as a staff attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services.

AZADEH SHAHSHAHANI: Azadeh Shahshahani is the Director of the National Security/Immigrants' Rights Project at the ACLU of Georgia. The project is aimed at bringing Georgia and its localities into compliance with international human rights and constitutional standards in treatment of refugee and immigrant communities, including immigrant detainees. To that end, a variety of strategies are employed, including development of impact litigation, legislative advocacy, providing training to attorneys, human rights documentation and publishing of reports, public education, and coalition and movement building. Current focus areas of the project include: immigration detention, racial profiling and local enforcement of immigration laws, governmental surveillance, discrimination faced by Muslim, Middle Eastern, and South Asian communities, immigrant students' access to K-12 and higher education, and language access in the court setting.

Azadeh is the editor of two human rights reports on 287(g) and racial profiling: "Terror and Isolation in Cobb: How Unchecked Police Power under 287(g) Has Torn Families Apart and Threatened Public Safety" and "The Persistence of Racial Profiling in Gwinnett: Time for Accountability, Transparency, and an End to 287(g)." Azadeh currently serves as Executive Vice President of the National Lawyers Guild; Co-Chair of the American Bar Association Committee on the Rights of Immigrants (of the Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section); Chair of Refugee Women's Network; and Chair of Georgia Detention Watch. Azadeh is also one of the Founders of Human Rights Atlanta and currently serves on its Coordinating Council.

JULIA SHEARSON: Julia Shearson has been serving for the past eight years as the Executive Director of the Cleveland Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). She received her Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University in New York City, a Master's in Linguistics from Ohio University, and a Master's in Middle East Studies from Harvard University.

While at CAIR, Julia has been working on civil rights advocacy, educational outreach and public relations. During her tenure she has initiated a number of projects to improve communication between law enforcement and the Muslim community. She serves on the Islamic Council of Ohio and is the co-chair of the Battered Immigrant Women Subcommittee of the Cuyahoga County Domestic Violence Coordinating Council. Ms. Shearson has initiated programs to educate the public about civil rights issues that disproportionately impact the Muslim community, including the watchlists, preemptive prosecutions, domestic surveillance, immigration enforcement, etc. Shearson is a plaintiff in Shearson v. DHS et al., a Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act case challenging her placement on the watchlist. The case was recently remanded to district court after the 6th Circuit ruled that government agencies could not claim blanket exemptions from the civil remedies portion of the Privacy Act for their watchlist databases.

SHIRIN SINNAR: Shirin Sinnar joined the law school as a Stanford Law Fellow in 2009. She previously served as a public interest attorney with the Asian Law Caucus and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of San Francisco, where she represented individuals facing discrimination based on government national security policies and unlawful employment practices. Sinnar served as a law clerk to the Honorable Warren J. Ferguson of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School (J.D. 2003), Cambridge University (M. Phil. International Relations 1999), and Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges (A.B. History 1998). Sinnar serves on the steering committee of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education.

SHAKEEL SYED: Shakeel Syed is the Executive Director of the Islamic Shura Council, a federation of Mosques & Muslim organizations serving more than half a million Muslims in Southern California. Syed also serves as the Board Chairman of Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice in Los Angeles and an executive board member of the ACLU-Southern California. Syed has appeared on national and international media outlets and has also written & cited in national and international press on issues related to Muslims and Islam. Syed has received several awards that includes a "Community Leadership Award" from the Orange County Human Relations and "Giants of Justice Award" from the Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice. Syed has double Masters in Natural Sciences & Computer Sciences and has been living in Southern California for over two decades.

NADIA TONOVA: Nadia Tonova serves as the Director of the National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC), a consortium of 22 independent organizations primarily serving the Arab American community in 10 states and D.C. Ms. Tonova oversees all aspects of programming within NNAAC, including Advocacy & Civic Engagement, Organizational Development, and the Arab American Resources Corps, a national AmeriCorps program. She also oversees NNAAC governance and member relations.

Nadia currently represents ACCESS and NNAAC on the Rights Working Group Steering Committee, the New Detroit Immigration Task Group, and the Alliance for Immigrants Rights and Reform-Michigan. She received her Bachelor's degree in Political Theory from Michigan State University and her Master's degree in Near Eastern Studies from Wayne State University.

DAWUD WALID: Dawud Walid is currently the Executive Director of the Michigan Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI), a chapter of America’s largest advocacy and civil liberties organizations for Muslims. Walid also serves as an advisory board member of the East West Link news and board of trustee for the Metropolitan Detroit Interfaith Worker’s Rights Committee. Walid has spoken at over twenty institutional of higher learning about Islam and interfaith dialogue and presented on prominent panel discussions such as the one on African-American and American Muslim relations at the 2008 Congressional Black Caucus Convention with the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Walid has made the Islamic pilgrimage called Hajj to Mecca, Saudi Arabia twice and served as an assistant Imam of Masjid Wali Muhammad in Detroit from 2001 until Sept. 2011 while also serving as interim resident Imam of the Bosnian Islamic Center in Hamtramck during the summer of 2007. Walid also served in the U.S. Navy under honorable conditions earning two U.S. Navy & Marine Corp Achievement medals as well as awards of recognition from the city councils of Detroit, Hantramck and the Mayor of Lansing.

VINCENT WARREN: Vincent Warren is the Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a national legal and educational organization dedicated to advancing and defending the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Vince oversees CCR's groundbreaking litigation and advocacy work which includes combating the illegal expansion of presidential power and policies such as illegal detention at Guantanamo, rendition, torture and warrantless wiretapping; holding corporations and government officials accountable for human rights abuses; and, challenging racial and gender injustice. Prior to CCR, Vince was a senior staff attorney with the ACLU, where he conducted civil rights cases focusing on affirmative action, racial profiling and criminal justice reform. Prior to the ACLU, Vince monitored South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings and worked as a criminal defense attorney for the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn. Vince holds a J.D. from Rutgers School of Law, and a B.A. from Haverford College.

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